Dolby adopts video watermarking tech for use in movie theaters

Wolfgang Gruener, 7th September 2007

Amsterdam (Netherlands) – Dolby said that it will incorporate Philips' CineFence technology into its professional products, which promises to put a stop to illegal in-theater camcorder copying.

According to an announcement made today, Dolby will use CineFence in its digital cinema solution, which is apparently used by all major movie theaters around the country. The forensic watermarking technology is able, according to Philips, to pinpoints the specific location, time and date the illegal camcorder recording took place.

The developer claims that the CineFence watermarks are imperceptible to cinema audiences, but maintain their integrity in the copied material, even after severe quality degradation such as cropping, scaling and compression into other formats such VCD, DivX, and MPEG4.

CineFence is currently demonstrated at the IBC 2007 tradeshow in Amsterdam.